Part 41
Pharaoh without God! He did not mourn and moan and spend his time in writing petitions to Potiphar, or making appeals to Potiphar.
He set himself to be of service to his fellow prisoners and the wardens and very soon he was at the front, again, for, "The Lord was with him." When he came to be exalted and Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt, notice what he did! He did not strut about, or take his case to court. He did not stop to enjoy his honors in peace and leave others to do the business, but he set to his work, personally and at once! Read Genesis 41:45–"And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt."
Then read the next verse–"And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went throughout all the land of Egypt."
No sooner did he get the office than he gave himself to the execution of it, personally inspecting the whole country! Many are so worn out by their toils in getting a position that they have no strength left for performing their duties. When they get a new position, their first consideration is how they shall spend the profits from it. Place-hunters seldom try to make themselves fit for the position, but crave the position whether they are fit for it or not!
Many, when they get an office, are exceedingly skillful in showing how not to do it–they get into the office and pass on everything to the next clerk and he to the next, so that nothing is done!
Procrastination is the very hinge of business and punctuality the thief of time. They do as little as they can for the money, upon the theory that if you are too energetic your labors will be too cheap.
Joseph, however, was not of that sort, for no sooner was he made commissioner-general of Egypt, than he was up to his eyes in the task of building storehouses and gathering up grain to fill them. By his wonderful economic policy, he supplied the people in the time of famine and in the process, the power of Pharaoh was greatly strengthened. The Lord was with him–therefore he did not think of the honor to which he had been promoted, but of the responsibility which had been laid upon him–and he gave himself wholly to his great work. That is what you and I must do if we are to give practical proof that God is with us! But notice again, God was with Joseph and that made him tender and sympathetic. Some men who are prompt enough in business are rough, coarse, hard–but not Joseph! His tenderness distinguishes him. He is full of loving consideration.
When he had prisoners in his charge, he did not treat them roughly, but with much consideration. He watched their countenances, enquired into their troubles and was willing to do all in his power for them. This was one secret of his success in life–he was everybody's friend. He who is willing to be the servant of all, the same shall be the chief of all. God was with Joseph and taught him compassion, for God, Himself, is very pitiful and full of sympathy for the suffering. Perhaps you will object to this, that Joseph seemed, for a while, to afflict and tantalize his brothers. By no means! He was seeking their good. The love he bore to them was wise and prudent. God, who is far more loving than Joseph, frequently afflicts us to bring us to repentance and to heal us of many evils. Joseph wished to bring his brothers into a right state of heart and he succeeded in it, though the process was more painful to him than to them!
At last he could not restrain himself, but burst into weeping before them all, for there was a big loving heart under the Egyptian garb of Joseph! He loved with all his soul and so will every man who has God with him, for "God is Love." If you do not love, God is not with you. If you go through the world selfish and morose, bitter, suspicious, bigoted, hard–the devil is with you! God is not for where God is He expands the spirit! He causes us to love all mankind with the love of benevolence and He makes us take a sweet complacency in the chosen brotherhood of Israel, so that we especially delight to do good to all those who are of the household of faith. This was a mark that God was with Joseph.
Another mark of God's Presence with Joseph was his great wisdom. He did everything as it ought to be done. You can scarcely alter anything in Joseph's life to improve it and I think if I admire his wisdom in one thing more than another it is in his wonderful silence. It is easy to talk, comparatively easy to talk well, but to be quiet is the difficulty! He never said a word, that I can learn, about Potiphar's wife. It seemed necessary to his own defense, but he would not accuse the woman. He let judgment go by default and left her to her own conscience and her husband's cooler consideration. This showed great power. It is hard for a man to compress his lips, saying nothing, when his character is at stake. So eloquent was Joseph in his silence that there is not a word of complaint throughout the whole record of his life.
We cannot say that of all the Bible saints, for many of them complained bitterly! Indeed, we have whole books of lamentations!
We do not condemn those who did complain, but we greatly admire those, who like sheep before the shearers, were dumb. The iron entered into his soul, but he does not tell us so–we look to the Psalms for that information. He bore in calm resignation all the great Father's will. When his brothers stood before him–the cruel men who sold him–he did not upbraid them. In fact, he comforted them, saying, "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here: for God did send me before you to preserve life." Making sweet excuse for them, he said, "And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save yourselves by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me here, but God."
How different from the spirit of those people who pry about, seeking to discover faults, and when an imperfection is marked, they cry, "Look! Did you see that? I told you so! These good men are no better than they should be." Yes, it may be true that there are spots in the sun, but there are greater spots in your eyes or you would see more of the Light of God! Those who see faults so readily have plenty of their own. Like the man who stole the goods and ran away, they try to turn the scent by calling, "Thief, thief," after others! May God make us blind to the faults of His people sooner than allow us to have a lynx eye for their flaws and an inventive faculty to ascribe ill motives to them! I wish we were as wisely silent as Joseph was. We may often repent of speech, but I think very seldom of silence. You may complain and be justified in the complaint, but you will have far more glory if you do not complain!
For what was there, after all, for Joseph to complain of, since the Lord was with him? He was in prison–that is something to complain of. Yes, but if the Lord was with him, the prison was no longer dreary! I would gladly go to prison any day if the Lord would be with me! Who would not? But Joseph was away from his beloved father and the trotting of those little feet that he loved so much to hear–the feet of little brother Benjamin. I am sure Joseph always missed his mother's only other son, his only full brother. It was a great grief to him to be away from home, but still, he was quiet, calm and happy. God is with him, if Benjamin is not! If father Jacob is away, God is present! And thus he finds no cause for bitter lament, but much reason for accepting his lot and doing his best in each condition.
"God was with him" and this is the last evidence I give of it–that he was kept faithful to the Covenant, faithful to Israel and to Israel's God right through. Pharaoh gave him, in marriage, the daughter of a priest. And the priests were the highest class throughout Egypt–so Joseph was thus promoted to nobility by marriage, as well as to be at the head of all the nobility by office.
They cried before him, "Bow the knee," and everyone honored him throughout all the land of Egypt. Yet he would not be an Egyptian– he was an Israelite, still, and his good old father, when he came down into Egypt, found him one of the family in heart and soul!
His father's blessing was greatly prized by Joseph and he obtained it for himself and for his sons.
I notice with much pain that many professors who prosper in this world have not God with them, for they turn into Egyptians–they do not, now, care for the simple worship of God's people–they sigh for something more showy and more respectable! They need society and so they seek out a fashionable church and swallow their principles! They lay it all upon their children, for who can expect young ladies and gentlemen to attend an ordinary Meeting House where such low people go? For the sake of the young people, they are bound to mix with society, and so they leave their principles, their people and their God! They become Egyptians! Indeed, some of them would become devil-worshippers to gain rank and status!
Off they go to Egypt, shoals of them! I have seen it and shall see it again. If some of you get rich, I dare say you will do the same–it seems to be the way of men–as soon as a professor prospers in the world, he is ashamed of the Truth of God he once loved. Such apostates will find it heavy work to die! Verily, I say unto you, instead of their being ashamed of us, we have good reason to be ashamed of them, for it is to their disgrace that they cannot be content to associate with God's chosen because they happen to be poor and, perhaps, illiterate! Joseph stuck to his people and to their God–though he must live in Egypt, he will not be an Egyptian! He will not even leave his dead body to lie in an Egyptian pyramid!
The Egyptians built a very costly tomb for Joseph–it stands to this day, but his body is not there. "I charge you," he said, "take my bones with you, for I do not belong to Egypt. My place is in the land of promise." "He gave commandment concerning his bones."
Let others do as they will, as for me, my lot is cast with those who follow the Lord fully. Yes, my Lord, where you dwell, I will dwell. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God, and may my children be your children to the last generation. If the Lord is with you, that is what you will say, but if He is not with you and you prosper in the world, and increase in riches, you will turn your back on Christ and His people–and we shall have to say, as Paul did, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world."
III. Thirdly, let us observe THE RESULT OF GOD'S BEING WITH JOSEPH. The result was that, "He was a prosperous man."
But notice that although the Lord was with Joseph, it did not screen him from hatred, "The Lord was with him, but his brothers hated him. "Yes, and if the Lord loves a man, the world will spite him.
We know that we are God's children because the adversaries of God are our adversaries! Furthermore, "The Lord was with Joseph," but it did not screen him from temptation of the worst kind–it did not prevent his master's wife casting her wicked eyes upon him. The best of men may be tempted to the worst of crimes.
The Presence of God did not screen him from slander–the base woman accused him of outrageous wickedness and God permitted
Potiphar to believe her. You and I would have said, "If the Lord is with us, how can this evil happen to us?" Ah, but the Lord was with him and yet he was a slandered man! No, the Divine Presence did not screen him from pain, either. He sat in prison wearing fetters till the iron entered into his soul and yet, "The Lord was with him."
That Presence did not save him from disappointment. He said to the butler, "Think of me when it is well with you." But the butler forgot him altogether! Everything may seem to go against you and yet, God may be with you. The Lord does not promise you that you shall have what looks like prosperity, but you shall have what is real prosperity in the best sense.
Now, what did God's being with Joseph do for him? First, it saved him from gross sin. He flees, he shuts his ears–he flees and conquers–for God is with him! O young Friend, if God is with you in the hour of temptation, you will need no better, no grander result than to remain perfectly pure with garments unspotted by the flesh!
God was with him and the next result was it enabled him to act grandly. Wherever he is, he does the right thing and does it splendidly. If he is a slave, his master finds that he never had such a servant! If he is in prison, those dungeons were never charmed by the presence of such a ministering angel! If he is exalted to be with Pharaoh, Pharaoh never had such a Chancellor of the finances of Egypt–never were Egyptian finance so prosperous!
In such a manner did God help Joseph that he was enabled to fulfill a glorious destiny, for if Noah was the world's second father, what shall we say of Joseph, but that he was its foster nurse? The human race had died of famine if Joseph's foresight had not laid by, in store, the produce of the seven plenteous years, for there was a famine over all lands! The wisdom of Joseph nourished all mankind! It was no mean position for the young Hebrew to occupy–to be manager of the commissariat of the whole known world! If God is with us, we shall fulfill a noble destiny, too. It may not be so widely known, so visible to human eye, but life is always ennobled by the Presence of God! Also it gave Joseph a very happy life, for taking the life of Joseph, all through, it is an enviable one.
Nobody would think of putting him down among the miserable. If we had to make a selection of unhappy men, we certainly should not think of Joseph! No, it was a great life and a happy life–and such will yours be if God is with you.
And, to finish, God gave Joseph and his family a double portion in Israel, which never happened to any other of the 12 sons of Jacob. Jacob said, "And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto you in the land of Egypt before I came unto you into Egypt are mine; as Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine," thus making each of them into a tribe. Ephraim and Manasseh each stood at the head of a tribe as if they had been actually sons of Jacob! Levi is taken out of the 12 and provision is made for the Levites as servants of God. And then Ephraim and Manasseh are put in, so that Joseph's house figures twice among the twelve! There are two Josephs in Israel but only one Judah!
Joseph has a double portion of the kingdom!
Those who begin early with God, stand fast to the end and hold to God both in trouble and prosperity, shall see their children brought to the Lord–and in their children they shall possess the double–yes, the Lord shall render unto them double for all they may lose in honor for His name's sake. It may be they shall live to see the hand of the Lord upon their children and their children's children! And to them shall be fulfilled the Word of God, "In you shall Israel bless, saying, God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh." Let us seek after a double part with God's people by keeping heartily with them. Who is willing to suffer with them that he may reign with them? Who is willing to cast the riches of Egypt behind his back that he may have a double portion in the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey?
I think I hear some of you say, "Here I am, Sir. I shall be glad enough to share with God's people, be it what it may." Carry
Christ's Cross and you shall wear Christ's crown! Go with Him through the mire and through the slough and you shall be with Him in the palaces of Glory! You shall share a double portion with Him in the day of His appearing. This can only be because the Lord is with you–that must be the beginning and end of it! "The Lord was with Joseph"–O Lord, be with us! O You, whose name is Emmanuel, God With Us, be with us from now on and forever!
Amen and Amen!
Ge 41:9 • Have You Forgotten Him?
ERMON 0680
Have You Forgotten Him?
"I do remember my faults this day."
Genesis 41:9
Our memory is like theirs, only in proportion as it is developed this peculiarity is more manifest. We have a most convenient warehouse for storing the merchandise of evil, but the priceless jewels of goodness are readily stolen from their case. We have a fireproof safe for worthless matters, and enclose the rarest gems in mere pasteboard cases. Our memory, like a strainer, often suffers the good wine to pass through but retains all the dregs. It holds the bad in an iron grasp and plays with good till it slips through the fingers. Our memories, like ourselves, have done the things which they ought not to have done, and have left undone the things which they ought to have done–and there is no health in them.
Among other things, it is not always easy to remember our faults.
We have special and particular reasons for not wishing to be too often reminded of them. Few men care to keep their faults in the front room of the house. Underground, in the darkest cellar, and, if possible with the door locked and the key lost–it is there we would like to conceal our faults from ourselves. If, however, the Grace of God has entered into a man he will pray that he may remember his faults and he will ask Divine Grace that if he should forget any excellences which he once supposed he had, he may not forget his defects, his sins, his infirmities and his transgressions. He would have them constantly before himthat he may be humbled by them and led to seek pardon for them and help to overcome them.
I do not say that the butler in this case had any work of Divine
Grace in his heart, but I shall use him as an illustration and hope by using my watchman's rattle, to wake up some of your sleepy memories, for there are thieves about, and you are being robbed without knowing it! It will be a healthy result to us all if we shall be compelled to say at the end of this sermon, "I do remember my faults this day."
In the first place this morning, using the butler as our illustration, we shall state his faults. Secondly, we shall consider the circumstances which refreshed his memory. And, thirdly we shall show the good points in his remembrance.
We shall first call your attention to the BUTLER'S FAULTS, for his faults are ours, only ours are on a larger scale. "I do remember my faults this day." His particular fault was that he had forgotten
Joseph–having promised to remember him when it should be well with him–he had altogether overlooked the circumstances which occurred in the prison. Instead he had been enjoying himself and leaving his friend to pine in obscurity.
Here, then, is the first fault–the butler had forgotten a friend. That is never a thing to be said to a man's praise. We ought to write the deeds of friendship as much as possible in marble–and that man is unworthy of esteem who can readily forget favors received. Joseph had done all that he could to make the butler's sojourn in prison comfortable. It was hard, that so soon as the butler had escaped from prison his friend Joseph had escaped his memory. Save us from men who can so easily forget!
But you and I have a Friend! We call Him very dear. We are accustomed to speak of Him in very rapturous terms. We declare that no others have such a Friend as we have. We have made our boast that there is none other that deserves the name in comparison with Him whom we call our best Beloved. And yet how many of us have forgotten Him?! His name blessed self–alas, how cold our love to Him! This fault will not strike the carnal mind as being a great one, but in proportion as our hearts are spiritual and under the influence of the Holy Spirit, we shall feel it a great and grievous sin to have in any measure forgotten our best Friend.
The circumstances were these–the butler was in prison, and then this friend came to him and spoke comfortably to him. Do you remember when you were in prison? I never can forget when I was bound in fetters far harder, heavier, and more painful to wear than fetters of iron. It was a dark dungeon, without a ray of light. There was no rest in it neither night nor day. A certain fearful looking for judgment and of fiery indignation haunted that gloomy cell. I struggled to be free, but the more I struggled the more hard did my bondage become. I was as one in the deep mire, who, byevery struggle only sinks himself the more hopelessly in it.
Do you not remember? Oh, Believers, you have passed through the same experience! Your feet were in the stocks, you laid in the innermost prison while the whip of the Law frequently fell upon your backs. The sentence of execution thundered in your ears and you trembled lest you should be dragged forth to your doom! Do you not remember it, the wormwood and the gall? Joseph came to the butler and said, "Why do you look so sadly today?" In our case we have not forgotten how Jesus came to us and enquired into our state. With what tender accents of sympathy did He address our hearts!
He told us–and we could readily believe it–that He would not quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed. We had not been accustomed to be addressed in this fashion, for the voice of Moses is far from musical, and his tones are very grating to the ear.
But when Jesus spoke it was all soft and sweet. "Poor Sinner!" He said, as though He pitied rather than blamed. He looked upon us not with an eye searching for iniquity, but with a heart which saw our calamity and which looked for the means to deliver us! Have you forgotten those times of brokenness of spirit when the only comfort which you knew was the name of Jesus? When the only stay for the hunger and thirst which were in your spirits was a morsel or two of His sweet love which He graciously cast to you to keep you by the way?
Do you remember your dream? The butler had a dream. Do you remember yours? It was more than a night dream–it was a day dream with a terrible interpretation appended to it in your mind.
You dreamed of a vine, too, and you were the cluster, and you dreamed of the time when you should be cast into the winepress, and trod beneath the feet of almighty Wrath until your blood should fill the cup of Divine vengeance even to the brim! Do you remember that dream? How it haunted you, and seemed like some huge bird of prey with black wings and horrid cries, fluttering over you as though about to tear you in pieces?
I remember when day was night to me, and night was worse than night. "Then You scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions," was the cry of Job, and such has been the lament of many and many a heart under the weight of sin. Oh, how guilt can thunder in our ears! How the Word of God can grow terrible and stern! "God is angry with you! God is angry with the wicked every day! It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after death the judgment." In our terror we could see the rider on the pale horse and feel ourselves overtaken by him and struck down by the horses' hoofs! We saw ourselves cast into the pit of Hell and seemed to be falling, falling, falling, ever sinking from the angry glance of God and still as dreadfully near to it as before! That was our dream, and the interpretation, the only interpretation whichseemed to fit it was this, "You will be banished from His Presence into eternal misery."
Beloved, do you remember when Jesus came with the interpretation of a very different kind, just as Joseph did to the butler? He interpreted to the butler that Pharaoh would lift him up and put him in his place again. And so Jesus came to us and told us that we were condemned in ourselves but that we might not be condemned at the last. He told us that we had a sentence of death in ourselves because God intended never to pass that sentence in the Court of Heaven and had, instead, passed it in the Court of our conscience.
He told us that God never kills with His Law in the heart without intending to make alive! That when He wounds He heals! That when He strips He means to clothe. We did not understand this. We thought that all this terrible dealing within our heart was the prelude of everlasting judgment! But He showed us that as many as God loves He rebukes and chastens. That it is the way with Him to break up the clods with the plow before He casts in the golden seed–and to dig out deep foundations before He piles polished stones one upon another to make a temple to His praise. Ah, I never shall forget when, at the foot of the Cross, I saw the interpretation of all my inward griefs when I looked up and saw the flowing of my Savior's precious blood–and had the great riddle all solved. My Brothers and Sisters, what a discovery was that when we learned the secret that we were to be saved not by whatwe were or were to be, but saved by what Christ had done for us! The simplicity of the Cross is the grandest of all revelations. "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth." Why it is as simple as the interpretation which Joseph gave to the dream! But in its simplicity lies a great part of its sweetness. How was it that I was such a fool as not to understand it before–that for every sinner who was truly a sinner, and had no righteousness of his own– Jesus Christ is made righteousness and salvation? And that every sinner who confesses with a broken heart that he deserves God's wrath, he may know that Jesus has suffered all God's wrath for him, and that therefore
God is no longer angry with him–for all His anger has been spent upon the Person of Jesus Christ?!
How sweet it is to understand that all our soul's terrors and alarms are only meant to bring us to the Cross! That they are not intended to make us look at ourselves, to search for comfort there–nor intended to set us upon paving a way to Heaven by our own exertions–but to lead us to Jesus! Happy day! We see Jesus as the cluster crushed until the heart's blood flows and can, by faith, go in unto the King, with Jesus Christ's own precious blood and offer that, just as the butler stood before Pharaoh with the wine cup in his hand. I bear a cup filled not with my blood but His blood! Not the blood from me as a cluster of the vine of earth, but the blood of Jesus as a cluster of Heaven's own vintage, pouring out its precious floods to make glad the heart of God and man. Here lies our fault– that we have forgotten all this–not forgotten the fact, but forgotten to love Him who gave us that soul-comforting, heart-cheering interpretation!
Beloved, when Jesus revealed Himself at first, our hearts were ready to leap out of our bodies for joy! Do you remember the time you thought you could sing always and never stop? Nothing was too hard, no burden was too heavy for you then–for your soul was all on fire with love. But ah, since then, what a sad declension! You forgot your Joseph. You forgot your Friend who gave you this kind interpretation of your dream!
Dear Friends, there was something which ought to have made the butler remember Joseph. When I read the story just now, it came very vividly to my own mind. It was this–that there was another in prison at the same time with him–and what had become of him?
The baker had been hanged! And if the butler had chosen to walk out, he might have seen the relics of the body of his poor miserable companion–gibbeted to be fed upon by kites and carrion crows.
That poor wretch had dreamed a dream, too, but the interpretation had been very different.
When some of us look back to the time when we were in sin with others, and recollect that although we are here, the living, to praise the Redeemer's name, some of our old companions are–we shudder to think of it, but it is so–at this moment in Hell! How shall we praise the electing Grace which has made us to differ? It is a solemn thought that such differences should occur–
"Why were we made to hear His voice,
And enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?"
Some of you used to spend hour after hour in the public house, and you could blaspheme God's name. And while those whom you once drank with are now drinking the cup of God's wrath, you, who were not one whit better than they–in some points even worse–are now saved by Sovereign Grace.
Discriminating Grace should always give a high tone to our gratitude. He has not dealt thus with every people. Praise the Lord!
If you whom God has chosen, and whom Christ has specially and effectually called by Divine Grace from among others–if you do not remember Him, what shall I say to you? Oh, dear Friends, how it should humble you and bow you down in the dust that after such remarkable, peculiar, distinguishing love as that of which you have been the subjects, you should still forget your dear Friend, and fail in point of duty where you ought to have been faithful to Him!
We have not, however, quite done with the case of the butler and Joseph. The request which Joseph made of the butler was a very natural one. He said, "Think of me when it is well with you." He asked no hard, difficult, exacting favor, but simply, "Think of me, and speak to Pharaoh. You will have his ear in moments when kings are most likely to be in good humor. You will wait upon him at his feasts–then, when it is well with you and the time is come– put in a word for your poor friend who will be pining away in the damps of the dungeon." It was a very simple thing, and I will be bound to say the butler said to him, "Oh, my dear fellow, I will not only do that, but I do not know what I will not do for you! You shall be out of prison within a week and I will take good care that you have the fat of all the land of Egypt, But he did nothing of the kind. What the Savior asks of us, His servants, is most natural and most simple, and quite as much for our good as it is for His Glory. Among other things, He has said to all of you who love Him, "This do in remembrance of Me." He has asked you to gather around His table, and break bread with His servants, and feast with Him. Some of you have never obeyed His command yet–you say you love Him–but you forget Him. It was kind of Him to institute that blessed ordinance to help your memory.
It is doubly unkind of you that you not only forget Him but are not willing to use the means to have that frail memory of yours refreshed. Moreover, of you who come to His Table He asks the favor to speak a good word for Him wherever you have an opportunity. During the last week have you spoken for Jesus? He asks you to spread abroad the savor of His name–have you done so during the last month or not? He requests of you that as you are an heir with Him and a partaker of His kingdom, you will help Him to spread it–not by word of mouth only–but by your gifts and by your labors. What have you done?
Suppose that now the Lord Jesus Christ should occupy this pulpit instead of me, and stand here and spread His hands and show you
His wounds? Could you dare to look at Him? Might not some of you have crimsoned cheeks as you would have to confess, "Ah, Master, we have forgotten You. As to much practical service and honor of Your name, we have been quite as negligent as the butler was concerning Joseph." Well, He is here in spirit, and He will soon be here in Person. Servants of the Master, be faithful to your Master! But oh, all you who lean upon His bosom, and have familiar union with Him–I will not merely speak of faithfulness to you, but I charge you by your love, by the lilies, and by the animals of the field–see to it that you not forget your Beloved! Day by day, and hour by hour, feast Him with your wine, with your milk, with the choicest of your gifts, and the richest products of your souls!
Labor for Him, live for Him, and be ready to die for Him who has done so much for you!
I have thus stated the butler's case, but I shall want to pause a minute or two over this head just to go into the reason of his fault.
Why was it that he did not remember Joseph? There is always a reason for everything, if we but try to find it out. He must have been swayed by one of three reasons. Perhaps the butler was naturally ungrateful. We do not know, but that may have been the case. He may have been a person who could receive unbounded favors without a due sense of obligation. I trust that is not our case in the fullest and most unmitigated sense–but I am afraid we must all plead guilty in a measure. Were there ever such ungrateful ones as the saints of God? We treat no other friend so badly as we treat our Lord!
We love our parents. We feel gratitude towards friends who have assisted us in times of need. We are bound by very strong ties to certain persons who were very greatly an assistance to us in a pinch. But our dear Savior–better than father and mother, fonder than the fondest friend, closer than the most loving spouse–how ill we use Him! I am afraid, Brethren, we had better all of us say it is ingratitude here–we are basely ungrateful to Him. But let us not confess it as a matter of course–let us be ashamed to have such a thing to say! Let us feel that it lowers us more than anything else could lower us–that it proves how total, how abject, how degrading must have been the Fall of Adam, that even the love of Jesus Christ shed abroad in hearts like ours in such a remarkable and plenteous manner cannot cure us of the base and detestable vice of ingratitude!
Oh You dear One, can I look upon Your face, all covered with Your bloody sweat? Can I view You again all covered with the spittle from the mouths of Your enemies? Can I see You in Your thirst and anguish on the Cross and know that every pang was for me, and every woe for me–and not a groan or spasm of pain for Yourself, but all for love of me who was Your enemy–and can I, after that, forget You? Oh my Soul, loathe yourself that you should be ungrateful to Him!
Perhaps, however, worldly care choked the memory. The chief butler had a great deal to do–he had many underservants, and having to wait in a palace much care was required. He who serves a despot like the king of Egypt must be very particular in his service.
It is very possible that the butler was so busy with his work and his gains, and looking after his fellow servants and all that, that he forgot poor Joseph. Is it not very possible that this may be the case with us? We forget the Lord Jesus to whom we are bound by such ties because our business is so large, our family so numerous, our cares so pressing, our bills and bonds so urgent–and even, perhaps, our gains are so large!
There is as much power to divide the heart from Christ in gain as there is in loss. In fact, the sharpest edge of the world's sword is prosperity. The back cut of adversity very seldom wounds as prosperity does. And yet, dear Friends, what are all these cares that they should make us forget our Lord? I know not to what to compare us. Unto what shall I compare our folly? We are like children in the marketplace who have their little plays and games, their pieces of broken crock and stick and stone and these take up all their thoughts. And they forget their dear mother who is calling them. She has nourished these children, and day by day her heart cares for them, but they forget her.
They cannot live without her–they must go to her for all their necessities–the very garments on their backs are her workmanship, and the food that keeps life in their bodies she must find. But they are too busy, too busy with these little plays and toys and mere dirt and such things as children in the market will play with–too busy to think of her. Oh, it is base that it should be so, but we are sadly worldly. I am afraid John Bunyan's picture of the man with the muck-rake is not altogether unlike some of God's own children.
Here we are with the rake groping over the dunghill, although above us stands the angel with the golden crown calling to us to look up from the dunghill and remember our lasting and enduring portion! But no, not we–that dunghill takes up so much of our time and thoughts that the crown is forgotten!
Do not misunderstand me, I would not have you be negligent in business–neither reason nor Revelation require that–but oh, if you could remember the Savior in it all, and if you traded for His sake and worked for Him, and in the ordinary deeds of life did all as unto the Lord ("whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus")–then, truly, everything might remind you of Him and both gain and loss, mercy and misery might only drive you nearer to His blessed bosom!
I am half ashamed to have to say one thing more. I am afraid that the butler forgot Joseph out of pride because he had grown to be such a great man and Joseph was in prison. He was butler to the king. Now when he was in prison Joseph was his equal, and in some sense his superior for he waited on him. But now my lord, the butler, has great interest at court and he wears splendid garments, and he is very great among his fellow servants. Joseph–Joseph smells of the dungeon! He is a jailbird, and quite beneath him. He knows not what Joseph is to become–that all the glories of the land of Egypt are to be at Joseph's feet–but he is ashamed of Joseph.
I do not suppose this operates with many of you, but I have known it with some professed Believers. When they were little in Israel, when they first professed to have found peace, oh, how they acknowledged Jesus! But they got on in the world and prospered– and then they could not worship among those poor people who were good enough for them once–they now drive to a more fashionable place of worship where the Lord Jesus is seldom heard of. They feel themselves bound to get into a higher class of society, as they call it, and the poor despised cause of Jesus is beneath them, forgetting, as they foolishly do, that the day will come when Christ's cause shall be uppermost!
They forget that the world shall go down and the faithful followers of the Lord Jesus shall be peers and princes even in this world, and reign with Him–He being King of kings and Lord of lords–and they sitting upon His Throne and sharing in His royal dignity. I hope none of you have forgotten Christ because of that. I do not know, though–I have my fears of some of you. I do know this, that many a working man thinks more of Christ while he is so than he does when he rises above his fellows. We have heard of one who used to give much when he was poor, but when he grew rich he gave less, and he said, "when I had a shilling purse I had a guinea heart, and wished I could do much more for Christ. But now
I have a guinea purse I find I have only a shilling heart, and I am for stinting and doing less."
Oh let it not be so! Shall it be that the more He gives the less we give, and the more He shows his love, the less we show our love?
God forbid that we should do this, but by every tie of gratitude let us serve Him more and more each day! There was very great heinousness in this forgetfulness on the part of the butler and he ought to have felt it. Perhaps the way for us to see our own fault is this. Suppose the butler had put himself in Joseph's place and said, "Now I wonder what Joseph thinks of my conduct? Suppose I were Joseph in prison, and I had done this favor to someone else? How should I feel with regard to his forgetfulness?"
My dear Friends, can you suppose yourselves in Jesus Christ's place? Suppose it possible that you could have died for another, and by your death could have saved him and made him the partaker of everlasting joys? What would you think of him if he treated you as you treat Jesus Christ? You would say, "I am ashamed of him. I regret that ever I spent so much love on such a thankless person."
Judge, then–judge your own case! Again, he might have judged of the heinousness of his forgetfulness by considering his conduct as he would have considered it at the first. Suppose a prophet had told you, when you were first converted, that you would live as you have done? Could you have believed it? You would have said "Never! If the Lord Jesus Christ does but take my burden off my back and set me free, there is nothing which I will not do for Him. I will be none of your cold, dead professors, not I."
But you have been, dear Friends! You have been just as lukewarm as others. Judge of your sin as you would have judged of it at the first. Again, will you please to judge of it as you judge of other people? What do you think of other cold hearts? What do you think of other chilly professors, whose lives are lukewarm, and whose love knows no fervency? Judge yourselves by the same judgment.
Put your spirit in the same scale and be humbled! Yes, let every one of us lay his mouth in the dust as we confess this day that we are verily guilty concerning the Lord Jesus. Let us all remember our faults this day.
II. The second point is this–WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES
BROUGHT THE FAULT TO THE BUTLER'S MIND? The same circumstances which surround us this morning. First, he met with a person in the same condition as that in which he once was. King
Pharaoh had dreamed a dream and wished for an interpretation.
Joseph could interpret–and the butler remembered his fault.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, there are those in the world who are in the same state of mind as you were once in. They once loved sin and hated God and were strangers and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. But in some of them there has been the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit and they have dreamed a dream. They are awakened, although not yet enlightened. Salvation is a riddle to them at present, and they want the interpretation. Do you not remember how the Gospel was blessed to you? Do you not desire to send it to others? If you cannot preach yourself, will you not help me in my life-work of training others to preach Jesus?
If I could bring before you this morning a score or two of anxious persons up from country villages and remote parts of our own land, you would say, "Oh, let me tell them about the Savior, or let me help to send someone to them who will do so." That is just the effect I want to produce without using that means. I want to make you remember your Lord Jesus–practically remember Him–by reminding you that there are persons who are now seeking Him, who are now panting after Him who have not yet heard the Gospel!
They are longing for some herald of peace to come to them and proclaim the good news. By the love of souls, aid me in my great anxiety to supply the needs of the age with a ministry called of God to preach His Truth.
The next thing that recalled the butler's thought was this–he saw that many means had been used to interpret Pharaoh's dream, but they had all failed. We read that Pharaoh sent for his wise men but they could not interpret his dream. You are in a similar case. There are thousands in England who are trying to minister to spiritual necessities–above all we have Popery in its double form–Romish and Anglican–doing its best to interpret the dream of the human heart. You know what a sad mess it makes of it–it gives a stone instead of bread–brings to poor, needy, guilty man, anything but the Savior he wants.
Now, as you hear these foolish wise men all blundering over the dream, do you not think of the Joseph who could interpret it? And as you hear these men holding up baptismal regeneration and sacramental salvation, does not your tongue long to say, "O fools!
O generation of simpletons! It is Christ Jesus who is the great
Interpreter–He alone can supply human necessities." Do you not feel a need, if you cannot go and preach yourselves, to help others to do so? Will you remember Jesus Christ as you remember how many are perverting the Gospel and preaching anything rather than the merit of His Cross? Remember your Lord today and your faults concerning Him, but let your remembrance lead to future diligence in His cause.
Then, again, if the butler could have known it, he had other motives for remembering Joseph. It was through Joseph that the whole land of Egypt was blessed. Joseph comes out of prison, interprets the dream which God had given to the head of the State, and that interpretation preserved all Egypt, yes, and all other nations during seven years of drought! Only Joseph could do it. Oh
Brothers and Sisters, you know that it is only Jesus who is the balm of Gilead for the wounds of this poor dying world! You know that there is nothing which can bless our land, and all other lands, like the Cross of Jesus Christ! Have you forgotten your Savior? Have you allowed His Gospel to be by without preaching it yourselves or helping others to preach it? Have you suffered the precious Truth of God to be like Joseph, hidden in prison, when you might have helped to bring it out into open court that others might hear and know the sound which has made glad your own heart? Then, as you remember England, the country of your love. As you remember other lands, which in proportion are dear to you, will you not think of Jesus today and do something for the promotion of His cause?
Once more, surely the butler would have remembered Joseph had he known to what an exaltation Joseph would be brought. Under God it was all through the butler saying, "I remember Joseph," that Joseph came out of prison, that he stood before Pharaoh, that he rode in the second chariot, that the heralds cried before him, "Bow the knee!" and that Joseph, the poor prisoner, became governor over the land of Egypt! Christian, would you like to lift up the name of Jesus from obscurity into the throne of the human heart?
At this present moment throughout this world Jesus Christ is still the despised and rejected of men! He is still a root out of a dry ground to the mass of mankind, and the only way in which He can be exalted is by loving hearts telling of Him and helping others to tell of Him. Think of the splendor which yet will surround our Lord
Jesus! He shall come, Beloved, He shall come in the chariots of salvation! The day draws near when all things shall be put under Him. Kings shall yield their crowns to His superior sway and whole sheaves of scepters, plucked from tyrants' hands, shall be gathered beneath His arms– "Look, you saints, the sight is glorious,
See the 'Man of Sorrows' now?
From the fight returned victorious,
Every knee to Him shall bow."
You by testifying of Him are promoting the extension of His kingdom and doing the best that lies in you to gather together the scattered who are to be the jewels of His crown. Surely the thought of His exaltation fires you with delight! The prospect of magnifying Him, of setting Him on high and helping to adorn His head–or even to strew the path beneath His feet–must fill your soul with a celestial ardor! Do not forget Him, then, but let the fact that you are in this position today–that you can glorify Jesus, that you can bless the world–let this encourage you to remember your faults this day.
III. In the last place, I have a few things to say by way of
COMMENDATION OF THE BUTLER'S REMEMBRANCE. It is
a pity he forgot Joseph, but it is a great blessing that he did not always forget him. It is a sad thing that you and I should have done so little–it is a mercy that there is time left for us to do more!
One of our dear friends said this morning–one of our beloved deacons–when I was asking him about some of the Churches he has been to visit–places where we are forming new Churches–what he thought of the work which was going on. "Oh," he said, "it is such a glorious work, and God is so marvelous in it that I wish I were younger that I might live to see more of it." He is not old, but he wished he were much younger that he might see God's gracious work going on for many years as it is now progressing through God's Grace in our midst. Our College is a mighty lever with which the Lord is working and if God's people knew more of it they would help it more.
I like the butler's remembrance, first of all, because it was very humbling to him. He had to say it to Pharaoh. Pharaoh was angry and put his servant in prison. That was not a very pleasant thing for the butler to say to the king, "My Lord, you were angry with me and put me in prison." But though it was a humbling thing, it was very necessary that he should say it and be reminded of it. Let us go before God with the confession, "Lord, I was as base and vile as any. Your Cross saved me. I was an heir of wrath even as others.
Jesus did all this for me, blessed be His name, and I humble myself to think that I should so treacherously have forgotten Him who was so kind to me." I commend his remembrance for another thing, namely, that it was so personal. "I do remember my faults this day."What capital memories we have for treasuring up other people's faults, for once, let us keep to ourselves. Let the confession begin with the minister. "I do remember my faults this day." This is not the place for me to tell you of them, though I dare say you see them without any telling of mine, but I do remember them. They make a long list. My Brethren in office–the deacons and elders–I have no charge against them, but I have no doubt they can all say, "I do remember my faults this day."
You members of this Church, some old and gray, some young beginners, many of you parents and people in middle life–I suppose there is not one of you but what might say–"Yes, I do remember my faults this day." Let it go round. Do not let there be an exception to the case–let each Christian, instead of thinking about others, make it a personal matter, "I do remember my faults this day." I could wish that the unconverted here would join with us.
Your fault–the great fault with you–is that you do not believe in Jesus Christ. You do not trust Him with your souls, but are still strangers to Him. I wish you could say, now, you up in that gallery there, each one of you, "I do remember my faults this day." And the whole body of you down below the stairs, and you around the pulpit, "I do remember my faults this day." It is a good sign of true repentance when it is personal repentance. Every man must mourn apart, and every womanday." The best part of it, perhaps, was the practical nature of the confession. The moment he remembered his fault, he redressed it as far as he could. He could not make up to his poor friend for the days he had been lying in prison, but he spoke to Pharaoh directly. That action was the means of bringing Joseph out.
Now, dear Friends, if you remember your faults to the Lord Jesus, may you have Grace not to fall into them again! If you have not spoken for Him, speak today! If you have not given to His cause, give now! If you have not devoted yourselves as you ought to have done to the promotion of His kingdom, do it now! Oh, Sinner, if you have not believed in Christ, may God the Holy Spirit lead you to believe now! It is of no use remembering a debt if you do not pay it. And it is of no avail to remember a fault if you do not repent of it.
I have little by way of urging you as a congregation to do more in the service of the Master. Often I feel held back by the thought that you are doing so much, but oh, if we could do as much as possible, if every one of us felt pledged, for the Lord's cause and the Redeemer's kingdom, that there should be nothing within the range of possibility to mortal man that we would not attempt for such a King, for such a Lord, oh, then we should see blessed days!! You have had a zealous spirit. You still have it–but you need still more of it, and may God send it to you!
We are helping to send the Gospel throughout all this country, and to different countries abroad as well. Do not hold back when God is blessing! Your parts help is still required–be not slow to render it.
Do come forward with us and help us to magnify the Savior's name till the ends of the earth shall know it, and all nations shall call Him blessed! The Lord bless these words for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Ge 42:1 • Corn in Egypt
ERMON 0234
Corn In Egypt
"Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do you look one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt. Get down there and buy for us from there, that we may live and not die."
Genesis 42:1, 2
GOD in His wisdom has so made the outward world that it is a strange and wonderful picture of the inner world. Nature has an analogy with Grace. The wonders that God does in the heart of man–each of them finds a parallel, a picture, a metaphor, an illustration–in the wonders which God performs in Providence. It is the duty of the minister always to look for these analogies. Our Savior did so. He is the model preacher–His preaching was made up of parables, pictures from the outer world, accommodated to teach great and mighty Truths of God. And so is man's mind constituted that we can always see a thing better through a picture than anywhere else. If you tell a man a simple Truth of God, he does not see it nearly so well as if you told it to him in an illustration. If I should attempt to describe the flight of a soul from sin to Christ, you would not see it one half so readily as if I should picture John Bunyan's pilgrim running out of the city of destruction, with his fingers in his ears and hastening with all his might to the wicket gate.
There is something tangible in a picture, a something which our poor flesh and blood can lay hold of. And therefore the mind, grasping through the flesh and the blood, is able to understand the idea and to appropriate it. Hence the necessity and usefulness of the minister always endeavoring to illustrate his sermon and to make his discourse, as much as possible like the parables of Jesus Christ.
Now, there are very few minds that can make parables. The fact is, I do not know of but one good allegory in the English language and that is the "Pilgrim's Progress in Parables." Pictures and analogies are not so easy as some think–most men can understand them, but few can create them. Happy for us who are ministers of Christ–we have no great trouble about this matter. We have not to make parables. They are made for us. I believe that Old Testament history has for one of its designs the furnishing of the Christian minister with illustrations. So that a Truth of God which I find in the New Testament in its naked form taught me as a doctrine, I find in the Old Testament cast into a parable. And so would we use this most excellent ancient book, the Old Testament, as an illustration of the New and as a means of explaining to our minds the Truth of God that is taught to us in a more doctrinal form in the New
Testament.
What, then, do we see in these two verses of the forty-second chapter of Genesis? We have here a picture of man's lost estate, he is in a sore soul-devouring famine. We discover here man's hope.
His hope lies in that Joseph, whom he knows not, has gone before him and provided all things necessary, that his wants may be supplied. And we have here practical advice, which was preeminently wise on the part of Jacob to his sons in his case and which, being interpreted, is also the wisest advice to you and to me.
Seeing that there is mercy for sinners and that Jesus our brother has gone before us to provide for us an all-sufficient redemption–"why sit we here and look one upon another?" There is mercy in the breast of God, there is salvation in Christ–"get down there and buy for us from there, that we may live and not die."
Three things, then, this morning–first, a pitiful plight. Secondly, good news. And thirdly, excellent advice.
First, A PITIFUL PLIGHT. These sons of Jacob were overtaken by a famine. We may talk of famines, friends, but none of us know what they are. We have heard of a famine in Ireland and some dreadful stories have been related to us that have harrowed our hearts and almost made our hair stand up on end. But even there the full fury of famine was not known. We have heard, too, to our great grief, that there are still in this city, dark and hideous spots where men and women are absolutely perishing from hunger, who have sold from off their backs the last rags that covered them and are now unable to leave the house–and positively perishing of famine.
Such cases we have seen in our daily journals and our hearts have been sick to think that such things should now occur. But we cannot any of us guess what is the terror of an universal famine, when all men are poor because all men lack bread, when gold and silver are as valueless as the stones of the street, because mountains of silver and gold would scarce suffice to buy a single sheaf of wheat. Read the history of the famine of Samaria and see the dreadful shifts to which women were driven, when they did even eat their own offspring. Famines are hells on earth. The famine which had overtaken Jacob was one which, if it had not at the moment of which this passage speaks, exactly arrived at that dreadful pitch, was sure to come to it. For the famine was to last for seven years. And if, through the spendthrift character of Eastern nations, they had not saved in the seven years of plenty enough even for one year, what would become of them during the sixth or seventh year of famine?
This was the state of Jacob's family. They were cast into a waste, a howling wilderness of famine with but one oasis and that oasis they did not hear of till just at the time to which our text refers, when they learned to their joy that there was corn in Egypt. Permit me now to illustrate the condition of the sinner by the position of these sons of Jacob.
First, the sons of Jacob had a very great need of bread. There was a family of sixty-six of them. We are apt, when we read these names of the sons of Jacob, to think they were all lads. Are you aware, that Benjamin, the youngest of them, was the father of ten children at the time he went into Egypt? So he was not so very small a lad at any rate and all the rest had large families, so that there were sixty-six to be provided for. Well, a famine is frightful enough when there is one man who is starving–when there is one brought down to a skeleton through leanness and hunger–but when sixty-six mouths are craving for bread, that is indeed a horrible plight to be in.
But what is this compared with the sinner's needs! His necessities are such that only Infinity can supply them. He has a demand before which the demands of sixty-six mouths are as nothing. He has before him the dreadful anticipation of a Hell from which there is no escape. He has upon him the heavy hand of God, who has condemned him on account of his sins. What needs he? Why, all the manna that came down from Heaven in the wilderness would not supply a sinner's necessities and all the water that gushed from the rock in the desert would not be sufficient to quench his thirst.
Such is the need of the sinner, that all the hands full of Egypt's seven years would be lost upon him. He needs great mercy. The greatest of mercy–no, he needs an infinity of mercy and unless this is given him from above, he is worse than starved, for he dies the second death and lives in eternal death, without the hope of annihilation or escape. The demands of a hungry man are great. But the demands of a hungry soul are greater still. Until that soul gets the love and mercy of God manifested to it, it will always hunger and always thirst. Though it had worlds given it for mouthfuls, its hungry stomach would be still unsatisfied, for nothing but the Trinity can fill the heart of man. Nothing but an assurance of the everlasting, immutable love of God and an application of the most precious blood of Jesus can ever stay the terrible hunger of the sinner's soul.
Mark again–what these people wanted was an essential thing.
They did not lack clothes, that were a want, but nothing like the lack of bread. For a man might exist with but scanty covering. They did not need luxuries–these they might want and our pity would not be so much excited. They did not need tents–without these they might be able to satisfy the cravings of nature. They lacked bread– that without the fire of life would dwindle to a spark, which at last must die out in the darkness of death.
"Bread! Bread!" What a cry is that, when men gather together and in the days of scarcity make that their war cry. "Bread! Bread!"
What is a more dreadful sound than that? "Fire! Fire!" may be more alarming, but "Bread! Bread!" is more piercing to the heart.
The cry of "Fire!" rolls like thunder. The cry of "Bread!" flashes like lightning and withers one's soul. O that men should cry for bread–the absolute necessity for the sustenance of the body! But what is the sinner's want? Is it not exactly this? He wants that without which the soul must perish. Oh, Sinner, if it were health, if it were wealth, if it were comfort, which you were seeking, then you might sit down content and say, "I can do without these." But in this matter it is your soul, your never-dying soul, that is hungering and it is its salvation, its rescue from the flames of Hell, which now demands your attention. Oh, what a need is that–the need of the soul's salvation! Talk we of bread and of skeleton bodies? These are frightful things to look upon. But when we speak of a lack of bread and of dying perishing souls, there is something more frightful here. See, then, your case, you who are without the Grace of God. You have great necessity–necessity for essential things.
Yet again–the necessity of the sons of Jacob was a total one. They had no bread. There was none to be procured. So long as they had some of their own, they could stint themselves and diminish their rations and so, by moderation, maintain themselves. But they looked into the future and saw their children dying with hunger and not one crust with which to palliate their pangs. They saw their wives sickening before them and their babes at their breasts, unable to obtain nourishment from those dry fountains. They saw themselves at length, solitary, miserable men, with their hands on their loins, bundles of bones, crawling about the tents where their children lay dead and themselves without strength enough to bury them. They had a total lack of bread. They might have borne with scarceness–but a total lack of bread was horrible in the extreme.
Such is the sinner's case. It is not that he has a little grace and lacks more. But he has none at all. Of himself he has no grace. It is not that he has a little goodness and needs to be made better, but he has no goodness at all, no merits, no righteousness–nothing to bring to God, nothing to offer for his acceptance. He is penniless, poverty-stricken–everything is gone whereon his soul might feed.
He may gnaw the dry bones of his own good works, but if the Lord has sent conviction into his heart, he will gnaw them in vain. He may try to break the bones of ceremonies, but he shall find that instead of marrow they contain gall and bitterness. He may hunger and hunger, because he has positively nothing with which he could stay his stomach. Such is your case, then. How abject is such a necessity as this–a total lack of an essential thing for which you have an immense need.
But yet worse–with the exception of Egypt, the sons of Jacob were convinced that there was no food anywhere. I believe the